Recently, the Georgian media abounded with alarming reports about a slowdown of foreign direct investments (FDI) in Georgia. Indeed, economic figures seem to support the view that there may be a turn in the FDI activity. The graph shows FDI in the first two quarters of each year from 2005 to 2013. There is obviously a huge volatility in the investment activity throughout those years, reflecting economic and political events like the war and the financial crisis in 2008. Yet since 2009, FDI activity was following a slow but steady upward trend.
This trend...

On June 28, the Georgian Parliament passed a bill imposing a moratorium on land acquisition by foreigners and foreign-owned legal entities till the end of 2014. The bill effectively reversed an earlier policy that welcomed foreigners to settle and invest in Georgia’s agricultural sector, a policy culminating in the seemingly outlandish program seeking to bring to Georgia – and offer fast-track naturalization to – dozens of expert farmers from South Africa.
Rattled by this policy reversal, groups representing the expat business community in Georgia are tr...

In the globalized world of today, increasing national competitiveness has become an important policy target for any country. While engaging in mutually beneficial trade, technological and cultural exchanges, countries find themselves in a race for scarce mobile resources such as financial capital and talent. Winning in this race are those locations that offer the best conditions for economic activity – skilled and disciplined labor force, high quality services and urban amenities, transparent and efficient public administration, etc. These locations – no...

The Georgian economy faces many challenges, not least of which are access to finance and the extremely high cost of financing private enterprises. With the cost of borrowing (real interest rate) reaching 17.3% on average in April 2013, businesses find it very difficult to function, let alone invest in innovative technologies, long-term growth and development. These challenges can be directly traced to issues raised in one of the ISET Economist blogs: the Georgian financial industry is still very far from being a well-developed, efficiently functioning sy...

Regional development policy, defined as aid and assistance given to economically less developed regions, is an issue for almost every country that seeks territorial unity. Putting the arguments of equity or efficiency aside, states with high regional disparities are potentially exposed to the political risk of disintegration. This threat can come from both developed and underdeveloped regions. While more advanced regions are capable of independence and might even decide to strive for secession, weaker ones, especially those bordering unpleasant neighbor-...

Cultural and intellectual achievements herald economic success of a people, and the Chinese cultural and intellectual heritage is breathtaking. The Chinese discovered gunpowder, the compass, and the movable type printing press long before the Europeans. Admiral Zheng He’s fleet reached Mogadishu and Mombasa with up to 28,000 sailors at the same time when the Europeans set out to discover Africa with crews of not more than 300 sailors. Temporarily lamed by Mao and his followers, capitalism has unleashed the dragon once again! China is about to become the ...

Read Our Articles in:

Disclaimer

The views and analysis expressed in this article belong solely to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International School of Economics at TSU (ISET) or ISET Policy Institute.

Vacancies at ISET

ReforMeter

Most popular blogs

When thinking of “market distortions” we typically imagine government regulations, taxes and subsidies that prevent market mechanisms from achieving an optimal outcome. For example, if you pay $100 f...

In March 2015, 31-year-old Tamar Trapaidze died of severe toxicity in Italy. Like many Georgian women of her generation, Tamar was an illegal immigrant employed as an in-home care worker by an Italia...

The first tea bushes appeared in Western Georgia in 1847, and since then tea production has played a significant, yet widely unknown, role in Georgia’s history. The humid and subtropical climate of W...